


Return

by OrionsProdigy95



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Apologies, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Mistakes, Second Chances
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-22
Updated: 2018-07-22
Packaged: 2019-06-14 17:19:59
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,196
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15393627
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OrionsProdigy95/pseuds/OrionsProdigy95
Summary: Remus made a mistake. Tonks is aware of this.Mostly indulgent angsty fluff.





	Return

**Author's Note:**

> Co-written with Critical_Twin. Enjoy.

Nymphadora Tonks (or Lupin, for the brief time it had lasted, she thought bitterly) was making herself a concoction in the early hours of the morning. She was largely following her nose at the moment, tossing whatever smelled good onto the slice of bread in front of her. So far, her sandwich (if it could even still be called that) included peanut butter, a few slices of ham, pickles, chocolate sauce, and a slab of cheddar cheese. 

Eyeing it shrewdly, she added the egg she had just finished frying and slapped a second slice of bread on top. Damn her cravings and their strangeness. She would be tasting the sweet pickles for the rest of the day, but her stomach snarled demandingly at her as she surveyed her work. Just as she lifted the sandwich to her mouth, a noise rent the two AM silence of the house with all the unexpected force of a wand blast. 

Leaping to her feet, she yanked her wand from her pocket and spun to the door, ready for action despite the bump that was now gently noticeable below her waist.

The silence fell again and lasted for perhaps thirty seconds before the sound came again. Now that she was expecting it, it was much less startling and not nearly as loud. In fact, it was almost tentative, the sound of someone knocking at the door. 

Gripping her wand a bit tighter, she carefully made her way toward the door. Despite the apparent politeness of the knocking, it was still two in the morning and no normal person came politely knocking at another person's door at such hours. Cautiously, she put her eye to the peephole she'd installed into the door. 

For a solid thirty seconds, she merely stared, heart hammering in her chest, unable to believe what she was seeing. 

Remus Lupin was standing outside her door, shifting uneasily on his feet, a familiar rucksack over his shoulders and his face drawn with weariness and strain and the kind of guilt that only Remus seemed able to give form to. 

She hesitated a moment longer, uncertain as to why he would be there. And then she got suspicious, gripping her wand tightly; Remus had been clear that he wanted nothing to do with her, which meant it couldn't have been Remus.

She cracked open the door, leaving the chain on and her wand aimed dangerously at his chest.

"What did Remus Lupin say to me exactly four months ago tonight?" she questioned quietly, grip much too tight on the handle of her wand.

He looked surprised by the door opening, jumping visibly. When he looked at her and recognized her, his face was pained and apologetic. 

"I...I said I'm sorry, Dora, but I can't live with what I've done to you," he said slowly, the words ripping at the barely scabbed over wounds in her heart. 

"Then why the hell are you here?" she muttered as she closed the door and slid the chain off, and then swung it open wide for him to come in.

His lanky form ducked through the door swiftly, his feet carrying him to the center of the room and then pausing as he turned back to her. She took her time locking the door once more, layering her usual enchantments over it and fiddling with the lock and chain slowly. 

"...why are you here?" she finally spoke into the door, her fingers gripping at the chain. 

"...I saw Harry," he said, and it was such an unexpected answer that she turned to face him, brows arched high. 

"...And?" she prompted when he didn't continue, locking the door once more and shuffling back to the kitchen in search of her sandwich. "He's alright, isn't he?"

"He's perfectly fine," Remus replied, clearing his throat slightly. "...he's certainly got his head on straighter than I did...he's so like his parents...I'd forgotten..." His voice faded off as his eyes followed her across the room. 

Tonks didn't bother replying, waiting for him to get to the point as she bit into her dinner and sat on the edge of the counter. 

His eyes trailed over her, lingering on her gently swelling belly and the horrific sandwich, and his eyes lightened slightly, the corner of his mouth twitching. It faded from his face as he became serious. 

"I've been a fool," he declared, his eyes meeting  hers. 

"The worst of fools and a cowardly, selfish bastard to boot. I wouldn't have blamed you a bit if you'd cursed me right off your doorstep, Nymphadora." 

"I nearly did," she answered honestly, looking up from her sandwich as she processed what he'd said. "...Glad you're seeing the light," she muttered after another moment, clenching her jaw and suddenly feeling quite nervous.

Remus shifted slightly, sidling a couple steps closer. In the dim light of the oil lamp on her table, she could see a dark bruise on the side of his prematurely lined face. His eyes, though, were clearer than she'd seen in months, even before he had left. The anxiety and indecision was gone. 

"I have no right to stand here saying this to you, but I will say it anyway, selfish or not, because you deserve at least this much. I'm sorry. I'm so, so, so very sorry, Dora. I don't expect you to forgive me, but if you could find it in yourself to at least allow me the privilege of staying here to help. I can, if nothing else, do my best to protect you both." His eyes flicked down to her belly. "I love you. Both of you, more than anything." 

Her arm wrapped around her stomach reflexively, her meal set aside and no longer appetizing; she stared at him hard, trying to search out any hesitation or regret in his eyes, and at the same time sift and organize the emotions that were churning through her head; all this time, her face remained very carefully expressionless.

And then finally, embarrassingly, infuriatingly, she cracked and a flood of tearful sobs wracked her body, almost slipping off of the counter as everything she had been dealing with crashed down on her like a fifty ton weight; she had been exhausted, terrified, and so very alone in her tiny dark apartment for  nearly three months, and all she had wanted was him to be there.

Remus's wiry, all too familiar arms wound around her carefully, pulling her to his chest as she cried. 

"I'm so, so sorry, Dora," he murmured into the top of her head, his shirt utterly ruined by her tears and snot. His long hand rubbed firm circles into her back. "I was such a fool..." 

"Y-Yes you are!" she wailed into his shoulder, hands fisting into his ragged shirt. "I swear...If-If you pull that bullshit again..." Tonks threatened, though it was wobbly and warped and it didn't really hit home as she pressed into his warmth, so utterly relieved.

"Never again, Dora. Never....as I said, I wouldn't blame you if you never forgave me." 

She just shook her head, crying into his chest until it slowly ebbed into sniffling and the occasional tear, her hormones wreaking havoc on her emotions. Tonks shifted back slightly swiping her sleeve across her eyes and nose and simply sitting for a moment in the quiet, her fingers loosening in his shirt and noticing the holes she had made in the threadbare material. 

"...There..." she began, but found her voice cracked and faint, and so cleared her throat and tried again, "There are shirts... I have some in my closet. Men's shirts." She had bought them a month earlier at a sale, thinking she might want them when her belly grew.

"Do you want one, Dora?" he asked softly, as though wanting to cause her the minimal strain possible with his voice. 

"I want you to go shower and put one on." She picked up her tea shakily, sipping from the warm mug silently, grateful for the soothing effect it had on her throat. 

Remus eyed her and then nodded slightly, seeming to recognize she needed space. 

"All right...thank you, Dora." He slowly backed away and then ducked down the hall. 

She deflated slowly, slipping off of the counter and tucking her sandwich in the fridge, no longer hungry enough to eat; she put on the kettle again and then leaned over the sink, splashing cool water on her face and leaning on the edge weakly.

It was inexcusable, what Remus had said and done to her. But he came back. And he swore to stay. He wanted to protect them. He wanted to be there.

Her head hurt as she weighed pros and cons; she wouldn't turn him away, not when she knew she needed him, but could she forgive him?  
More importantly, could she trust him this time? Tonks was positive that another episode of heartbreak that intense might actually kill her.

The soft whistling of the kettle drew her from her thoughts, moving it off the burner and filling two fresh mugs, letting the tea steep. 

She had just removed the tea bags when Remus cleared his throat quietly a few feet behind her to announce his return. When she turned to him, he wore one of the shirts she'd indicated, and it occurred to her, in a distant part of her brain, that she wasn't sure she'd ever seen him in a shirt that didn't look worn or threadbare in some capacity. It made him look younger, that distant part of her brain thought, smoothed some of the lines from his face and drew out the tawny that remained in his hair. 

"What can I do?" he asked quietly, as though she were a fragile creature he feared spooking.

Despite his caution, she thought the air of calm resolve remained over him. 

"Laundry is still drying..." she murmured eventually, stirring their tea and then holding out a mug. "So...Tell me what I missed," she said, shuffling to her scruffy couch to sit.

He took the mug with another quiet word of thanks and then began to fill her in on the news he had gathered during his brief travels. He sipped strangely fondly from the mug at intervals, savoring the simple drink as though it were something much more elaborate.

Eventually they ran out of news, one of Tonks's records filling the silence that followed.  
Her empty mug quietly rested on the floor by the couch, her still raw eyes watching Remus, afraid he would flee the moment she glanced away.

"...you still steep your tea too long," he said gently into the silence, his hands cupped around his mug. One of his fingers softly tapped the glass. "I missed it." 

Her cheeks reddened at that and she shook her head at him, "...You look nice in that shirt."

"It's very kind of you to lend it to me," he replied.

She swallowed softly, adjusting just slightly so that their shoulders brushed. "I bought them last I was in town...I thought they might be nice in a few months..."

"I see," he nodded, his elbow lightly grazing her own. "It is quite comfortable." 

She nodded again, her hand slipping warily into his. "...If you're hungry, there is food in the fridge..."

He squeezed her hand gently, looking over at her again. 

"I'm all right now," he said, his fingers twining with hers. 

Tonks stared at him for a moment, her fingers tightening on his gently. "Please don't leave us again, Remus. I dont think we can take it..."

"I swear to you, Nymphadora, I will never voluntarily leave you again." He squeezed her hand again, more firmly this time. 

Her eyes started to sting again so she turned her face into his shoulder, crawling into his lap.

"Good."

His arms wound around her once more, pulling her home against his chest, his head dipping to press his cheek to hers in a tender way. 

Her fingers lifted and buried into his hair, cradling him close as she let out a less shaky sigh, "I love you, you fool...Thank you for coming back."

"Thank you for having me back, Dora," he murmured. 

She turned her head and kissed him softly, finally melting into his hold and just ignoring anything else outside of her little bubble. His answering kiss was warm and tender and full of amazement at her all over again, his fingers carding through her hair. 

Eventually she found herself sprawled against his side on the couch, her eyes nearly closed as his heat warmed her comfortingly; she pressed his hand against her stomach, kissing his shoulder softly and biting back a yawn (she admittedly had not been sleeping well at all).

He started suddenly beside her, his eyes going wide with amazement as she felt the baby stir and kick within her. 

"He's happy you're here, too," she mumbled, sighing quietly and burying into his chest.

She felt an incredulous smile tug at his lips against her temple. She couldn't help one tugging at her own, drifting off into a light doze in his arms.


End file.
